What Will Our Offices Look Like?

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So what might this workers' paradise look and feel like? Well, for starters, technology will be "invisible but unavoidable," as Bob Arko of industrial designer IDEO puts it. The tangled cables that snake through every office, for instance, should disappear, replaced by wireless systems that zap voice, data and video through the air. Smart materials could make any surface or gadget feel like wood one day and metal the next. Intelligent chairs might conform perfectly to your posture, giving you a much needed back rub in the process. Embedded systems and biometric, body-sensing technology will enable every piece of hardware, from cell phones and PDAs to PCs, to know exactly who you are and where, as well as to communicate with every other piece.

"You'll walk into the building like you own the place," says Mark Smith, manager of appliance platforms at H-P Labs. When you arrive at work, you could simply stroll through a secure, smart door and listen as your desktop virtual assistant reads aloud your schedule for the day. The temperature and lighting will adjust automatically to your preferences. Though we probably won't attain the mythical paperless office, there will likely be less of the messy stuff lying about, thanks to high-tech, rewritable parchment. And forget about typing: sophisticated voice recognition will let you tell your PC what to do (though all that yakking could just as easily make you hoarse).

The harsh right angles and rigid grid layout so despised by hapless cubicle-ites are also likely to vanish. In their place, workers might find themselves in a tentlike structure with a retractable roof, pitched right in the middle of a vast, open commons area. Screens stretching from poles could shift from transparent to opaque, depending on your mood and need for privacy. Don't worry about the noise from your next-door neighbor; acoustics technology can block that out. And don't fret about fighting for a windowed office either; with walls of flat-screen monitors raining down images and data from all directions, you will be able to enjoy any number of stunning virtual views from your cockpit. To chat with a co-worker a continent away, just call him or her on a lifelike, 3-D video-conferencing system. If you need to get busy on a project with a few of your colleagues, simply fold up your movable workstation and roll over to them. You won't have to knock. "We'll blur the line between furniture and technology," says Rick Duffy, director of the knowledge-resource group at Herman Miller. "Instead of building walls of metal and wood, what if they inflated with air or water?"

We won't hold our breath for that one. Just as important as personal space, though, will be group space. Rather than a couple of conference rooms decked out with imposing mahogany tables, picture multiple areas for groups to convene and collaborate--from indoor gardens, playgrounds and cafes to what designers term contemplative caves. Even the lowly office kitchenette might be wired by 2025. Say you're having a spirited debate with a colleague about a pitch to a prospective client just as you're grabbing a cup of joe. By 2025, according to John Seely, director of Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center, you should be able to expand the conversation right there on digital whiteboards that line the walls and then have your ideas instantly e-mailed to your computer.